Watch what you say to others. Watch how you say to others. - A story about why "You've lost weight, you look good." is not a compliment to me.

I know my blog has been a bit... well, negative lately, but these are things that I'm going through and want to get out of my mind. For a while at least.

I'm gonna tell you a story of a kind once again. This story involves an eating disorder, so you've been warned.
Few people do know that I used to have an eating disorder, it's not  something that I've shouted from top of the hill, but not something I've gone out of my way to hide either. I guess now it's out in the open :'D

It all begun some years ago. I was relatively normal. I had hobbies and hung out with my friends etc. I was outgoing. An extrovert. I guess some, if not most, of them thought that I was an "attention whore" and loud, but I didn't care. I didn't care much about my looks either. I knew I was okay-looking and considered myself normal weight, but I didn't really care about those things.
Around that time too I realised my depression and a friend of mine talked me into going to a doctor.
Now, I am in no way depressed enough in Finland's standard to get professional help (aka I am not hurting myself or others physically nor have I tried to kill myself), so all the doctor did was give me meds. They never really told me what they'd do or what their purpose was, only mentioned something about regulating my sleeping and eating.

Soon enough things changed. I developed a binge eating disorded (BED). I was basically eating all the time. If there was food, I was probably eating it. That meant I gained weight fast and a lot. Of course I had no idea what a BED was, nor that I had it. It's something I only realised years after.
I still didn't care about my weight or my looks.
But some people and friends, some that I trusted and considered important, started saying some nasty things. Some barely wanted to hang out with me. One of them told me that I was "sickeningly fat" and that it was unhealthy.
That crushed me. This was a person I had trusted, and they said that in a rather unkind way, with disgust in their voice.

This of course changed everything and I took a 180 turn in my eating. I stopped eating almost completely. From one eating disorder to another.
I also kind of pulled myself into my shell. I started to avoid most people and tried to not be too loud.
Quite soon I had lost a lot of weight and slowly started to go back to those places where people had hurt me. Back to the people who had hurt me. In just a couple of years I had...

gone from this...:

  

April 2007 (if I remember correctly, this was taken really close to the "you're sickeningly fat"-comment"

to this...:

 

July 2008

to this...:

 February 2009

September 2009

Of course they saw my weight loss (who wouldn't have?) and they started saying things to me again.
Instead of the comments in negative tone, they were saying things like: "You've lost weight. You look really good." with a very positive tone, and they wanted to hang out with me more once again. I honestly felt like I wasn't good before, but now I was. I didn't realise it back then, but my worth was basically measured with my weight. Not just by others, but by myself as well. I was more worthy if I was skinny.

I started eating quite normally once I had a job, which also gave me a reason to spend less time with those people (I had started to feel awful around them once again) and soon enough I moved to England for studies.
I visited Finland every now and then, and every time I saw these people, they'd tell me how good I looked and how skinny I was. Every time I felt awful.

Some of the people didn't see my discomfort, some I tried to explain it to just couldn't understand why it always made me feel anxious and horrible when others "complimented" me. One even told me that they'd feel really happy if someone told them they looked skinny and good (appparently I was supposed to feel and be like them all the time). I still hate it if anyone comments on my weight, even when they try to make it a compliment. It's a trigger that shoots me back to the time I was in the middle of the eating disorder and felt like I was only worth something to people when I was skinny. I still feel horrified every time my weight goes over a certain number.

I've pretty much left those people behind and decided that I don't want them around me.
Another thing that's changed is the way I feel when other people talk about their weight. I hate it. I never say it out loud, but the people close to me complaining about their weight (usually: "I'm so fat") horrifies me, because I have no idea what to do or what to say. And whenever I say/do something I feel like I'm making it worse by basically making them feel the same as I did. That their weight needs to be something for them to be worthy.
I never had anyone help me, and I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I feel helpless and I get reminded of my own fight. I try to help by telling them that if they wanna lose weight, the best way to go about it is: eat and exercise. 
But those weight conversations keep coming up and they always make me terrified and anxious. Selfishly I wish they didn't. Selfishly I wish people would just shut up about it around me sometimes.
I want to help, but I feel like I can't. In a way I don't even want to, because I'm so scared of saying something hurtful.

Maybe someday I'll get over this all and I'll be okay with my weight again, but I know it's not now.

Stay human, and blog ya later!